This is a blog for chess fans by a chess fan. I enjoy winning as much as anyone else, and I've had a reasonable amount of success as a competitor, but what keeps me coming back to the game is its beauty. And that, primarily, is what this site will be about! All material copyrighted.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

John Paul II and Chess

Pope John Paul II has been much in the news lately, and since he has a reputation as a chess aficionado, I thought I'd look up some of his contributions to the game and pass them along.

Or so I thought. According to Mike Fox and Richard James's 1993 revised edition of The Even More Complete Chess Addict, pp. 16-17, the game and at least one problem attributed to the Pope were merely hoaxes, perpetrated by an unnamed Frenchman. On the other hand, the late Argentian GM Miguel Najdorf - a native of Poland, like the Pope - insisted that John Paul II did play and actually published a book of problems. On the third hand (why stop at two?), however, a search of Harold van der Heijden's magnificent and nearly comprehensive Study Database showed no entries for Wojtyla.

So, while it would be nice to see the creativity of John Paul II as expressed over the chessboard, it appears that we don't have any trustworthy examples to evaluate. If anyone knows more about the matter, however, their comments are more than welcome!

About Me

I'm a USCF master (current rating 2352) and a once and hopefully future senior master (peak rating 2434), but my time in chess these days is dedicated primarily to training juniors and others to achieve their own successes in our great game.
For fun, I also teach philosophy; for a challenge, I'm trying to complete my doctoral dissertation!